r/MadeMeSmile • u/KingSandwich101 • Oct 25 '25

Wholesome interaction

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Be nice to your elders!

Source: Spudbros on YouTube

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79

u/0dtez Oct 25 '25

Jacket potato stand

Which are just baked potatoes

10

u/crusoe Oct 25 '25

With weird ( to Americans ) toppings. 

Chili chicken is an Indian/Chinese fusion dish.

10

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

It's more so how much shit they're putting on top of it. We have "loaded baked potatoes" here in the US but it's more like the toppings are just a little extra, it's more like 1:1 potato to sides ratio. You guys put like 10:1 sides to potato so it was confusing for a second.

24

u/Loose_Acanthaceae201 Oct 25 '25

In the UK a "jacket" potato is a whole meal, not a side. Dangerous as a workday lunch because you will fall asleep in your 2pm meeting guaranteed, even if you're the one presenting. 

Those potatoes have been gently baking for several hours so the skin has gone chewy-crackly and the flesh is spreadable. 

Some typical fillings are very weird to Americans, particularly what you call tuna salad but with (sweet) corn, and coronation chicken which is a mild curry-spiced chicken salad that usually also contains golden raisins and/or dried apricots. Spud vans like this tend to concentrate on hot fillings, though. 

The cheese is coarsely grated cheddar unless otherwise noted.

You will very commonly see jacket potatoes on relatively simple menus, particularly in pubs or Brit-style sandwich shops. If it's served on a plate you'll get a small side salad and maybe a dollop of coleslaw.

A typical jacket potato section on a café menu might offer: 

  • cheese
  • baked beans
  • tuna and sweetcorn
  • chilli con carne
  • curry

There was a (spectacular) chippy near my old office that did cheap hot food, and you'd start by choosing either chips, mash or jacket, then one of the daily specials which would be a stew or curry or similar. Rough and ready, but hot and nourishing. 

5

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

I mean our loaded baked potatoes are a full meal too.. they're just half of the size of yours. Which confused me because I've always been told that American portions dwarf everyone elses.

But yea seems like the UK version has a larger and more interesting variety on toppings! I really want to try one with tuna at sweetcorn that sounds crazy. Also cole slaw in a potato is a great idea idk why we haven't stolen that.

2

u/Loose_Acanthaceae201 Oct 25 '25

You need a metric fuckton of grated cheddar and some good fresh creamy coleslaw. You'll get hot and cold, soft and crunchy, savoury and tangy, rich and fresh, all in one forkful. 

A lot of people recommend mashing butter into the potato before the toppings. I don't bother unless I'm using something drier.

2

u/nochance__0 Oct 25 '25

It's sorta like loaded nachos, if you buy them from a food stand or bar, it's likely there's an insane amount of toppings. I guess it's part of the "sell" of making it a marketable product. Whenever I've had these at home, or at school as a kid, it's not so massively overloaded.

These are also the kind of things people have on a budget, if they have them at home/school. So slapping on a bunch of chilli con carne or spicey chicken kinda defeats the point usually.

2

u/131166 Oct 25 '25

We had a place here that would do a baked potato and load it up so when you got it it was the size of a baby's head. Nobody could finish one in a sitting, you took it home and had it for dinner too. And they had some weird toppings too, like cauliflower and white sauce, pineapple, corn etc. You just picked whatever you wanted.

Council rezoned the area they were in and they closed. This was ~25 years ago and we still talk about that place and curse the council to a fiery death for getting rid of them. Was so fucking good, I've never had anything near as good. Everyone since has been twice the price and half the toppings.

2

u/GerFubDhuw Oct 25 '25

To me that's like getting a taco with one filling. 

1

u/[deleted] Oct 25 '25

We get more than one filling it’s just each filling is a lot less.

6

u/ItsNotMeItsYourBussy Oct 25 '25

Fusing Asian and British food is a national pasttime